Shack Flints, Snape's motivation

[marinafrants]

No: HPFGUIDX 36798

--- In HPforGrownups at y..., Edblanning at a... wrote:
 
> The trouble with this, as someone pointed out once, is that Snape
tells 
> Lupin, in the scene where we first encounter the wolfsbane potion,
that he's 
> made a whole cauldronful, should Lupin need more. Well, OK, perhaps
it just 
> needs to be *hot*, but surely he could heat it if necessary.
Magically 
> boiling kettles doesn't seem to be a problem. Or maybe it can't be 
> *reheated*, and he's keeping the batch warm in his cauldron,
devotedly 
> tending it night and day, making sure it doesn't boil dry. You see
how I'm 
> bending over backwards to try and accomodate you? :-)

Well, my take on it is that the issue is not time but distance.  No
matter how careful you are, carrying a cup of liquid around causes the
liquid to slosh, and I think the Wolfsbane potion can only tolerate a
very limited amount of sloshing.  Maybe the ingredients are in layers,
like in a Harbor Light, and the layers can't be allowed to mix. 
Carrying it from the Potions Lab to Lupin's office is okay as long as
the carrier walks smoothly and has a steady hand, but lugging it out
to the Whomping Willow, down into the tunnel, all the way over to
Hogsmeade and up into the Shack is out of the question.
 
> But the backing out. He knows Lupin's not in danger of transforming,
so what 
> is it? Does he think he might hex him or something? Or does he just
think 
> that where Potter is, there must be trouble? Wondering what they're
up to? 
> From his POV, Lupin's already colluded with students against him in
the 
> boggart incident. Perhaps he's expecting them to play a trick on
him. Denting 
> to the pride. I don't know. But an interesting point, Marina.

Thanks.  I hope I don't alienate myself from the other Snapefans too
much with this theory, but I have this strong suspicion that the
16-year-old Severus did not acquit himself at all well when faced with
a snarling werewolf in a narrow tunnel.  He was not Tough.  He
screamed like a girl and went wobbly in the knees and forgot all those
vaunted Dark Hexes he's been so famous for since he was eleven.  In
short, he panicked, and to make it worse, he was *seen* panicking --
by James at the very least, and possibly by other Marauders and a few
teachers too.  How much more humiliating can you get?

And now Lupin comes back to the school, and triggers that same
visceral fear again.  But it's not the same now, is it?  Nearly two
decades have passed.  Snape is now a nasty, Tough ex-Death Eater who's
survived things that make werewolves look like fluffy widdle bunnies
by comparison.  No more panic attacks for him.  But ooooh, wouldn't he
just itch for a chance to prove it?


 Even more 
> interesting to me is your suggestion that Snape wanted to prove
himself. I do 
> think this is a *big* motivational factor where he's concerned.

<snip>

> Given the situation and the fact that he was likely to meet not only
a 
> werewolf, but a dangerous, wanted man whom the MoM needed a bevy of
trained 
> Hit Wizards to contain, shouldn't he have gone to Dumbledore? With
the Map 
> (the map that Dumbledore is still in the dark about a year later).
> But our Severus doesn't do that, does he? He goes off by himself.

<snip some more>

>He has problems with being a team player in these 
> important things. Why?
> I think it's all down to a thirst to prove himself. I think he needs
to prove 
> himself worthy of his place at Dumbledore's side. Whether he craves
the 
> approval of others, I'm not sure, though I believe it likely. I
certainly 
> think he wants recognition.

I think you're right.  (This is, of course, in no way incompatible
with my theory about Snape's fear of Lupin.  Gotta love all those
layers.)  In particular, I think Snape wants recognition from
Dumbledore.  Which is why he falls apart so badly when Dumbledore
takes HRH's side -- not only taking their word over Snape's, but
aiding and abetting their efforts to help Black escape, and then
standing there twinkling when Snape confronts them with what they both
know is true.

I like to think that soon after PoA there was an off-stage scene where
Snape and Dumbledore sat down and hashed it all out.  That would be
where Snape was finally persuaded of Sirius' innocence (clearing the
way for that handshake at the and of GoF), and where Dumbledore
explained that his actions had not been motivated by distrust of
Snape.

Marina
rusalka at ix.netcom.com